


life after death, and other small miracles

by geometrician



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Background Relationships, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Movie Night, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 16:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20085172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geometrician/pseuds/geometrician
Summary: Aubrey moves in with Duck and Minerva after the feds close off Kepler. They don't really talk about Ned, until they do.





	life after death, and other small miracles

**Author's Note:**

> known during writing as "they were roommates (oh my god they were roommates)"

The feds arrive after the end of the world.

After the mountain falls into the river, your town is crawling with black-suited agents who arrive in slick cars and refuse to answer questions, or ask the right ones. They rope off everything surrounding the gate and cut you off from the rest of civilization, and you’re just supposed to sit around twiddling your thumbs until some bureaucrat in DC makes a call.

That’s always how it is, huh? Always up to the locals to deal with the supernatural bullshit first, ’cause nobody’ll believe a down-home country fool waving polaroids of Bigfoot around, and then J. Edgar “Motherfuckin’” Hoover comes thundering in claiming best practices. Not a lot of charity in this world, is there? The FBI hasn’t made a business of acting like a good neighbor so far, and you don’t expect them to start anytime soon.

But you gotta admit, there’s been a dearth of neighborly sentiment where you never expected it to be in short supply. In a place like Kepler, deep in the country’s own heart, you’re supposed to look out for each other. You’re supposed to make sure no one’s hurting too bad. You’re supposed to share your means. You’re supposed to trust each other. You’re practically family, aren’t you?

Which is why you’re there when Aubrey and the Sylvans book it out of Amnesty Lodge, and also why you toss her your spare keys after she opens the door to your loud, heavy knocking.

“Look alive,” you say, and she does, snatching them out of the air on reflex. Then she looks at what she’s caught, and double-takes.

“What—”

“Look, Aubrey, you gotta go somewhere, and you’re not stayin’ at the Cryptonomica. And that’s that. Well, so long as you don’t mind sharing the pull-out with Minerva.”

“Oh,” she says, voice wobbling, and closes her hand around the keys. “Okay. That’s fine.” 

She’s done a lot of crying lately, so you scramble to head her off at the pass. “Thought you could use some help packin’ and everything, so.” You clear your throat, folding your arms. “I’m here, I guess.”

She doesn’t cry, but her laugh is a little wet, and here, in this quiet, dimly-lit hallway, you find your first moment of solace in the apocalypse. “Yeah, you are. Thanks, Duck.”

Aubrey doesn’t have a lot of stuff. She’s a traveling act, after all, not a permanent fixture, no matter how hard recent events have tried to prove otherwise. In fact, most of the stuff you seen strewn around is takeout trash – empty soda bottles, cardboard pizza boxes, plastic salad bowls with lonely forks trapped inside. You push the curtains apart to let some sharp winter sunlight in, and her rabbit thumps appreciatively from his makeshift pen.

One box of stage magic tools, a box of rabbit things, and a duffel bag later, she scoops the rabbit into his pet carrier and zips up the top. And that’s it. Besides a garbage bag full of carryout waste, which she leaves in the hallway “for the FBI, just in case they need anything,” all they have left is to do roll call at the front desk.

She puts her hands on her hips, assesses the load, and says, “Hey, would you mind carrying Dr. Harris Bonkers?”

You pause at that, because you didn’t expect it, but there’s a part of you that just kinda says _huh! _in a pleased way, so you say, “Yeah, I’ll hold’im.” And you do, very carefully. The rabbit stays calm and still when you pick up his kennel, even when it swings a bit. You guess you’re just really fuckin’ good with animals and animal-adjacent beings. That’s that park ranger cred kicking in.

Audrey hugs the receptionist after the little old lady tells her she can keep her key, and the only thing you can do is stand behind them awkwardly while she reassures the elderly Sylvan that they’ll all be back to normal business soon. You have to bite your tongue at that, since nobody needs a downer right now, but you’ve seen things (you always see some kinda bullshit, thanks, Minerva) and you don’t know if she’s telling a good lie or not. You’re pretty sure what she’s doing is just pumping everyone up with false hope.

But hey, you’re the eternal cup-half-empty guy, and you’ve been sitting around doing fuck-all for folks recently, so you can’t judge her for slapping bandaids on the problem. It’s better than nothing.

You hold the rabbit cage on your lap, squished between Aubrey and an elderly man in a scarf and flat cap, as the Amnesty Lodge shuttle makes begins its precarious journey down to the town below. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch her stare out the window at the passing trees, expression perfectly blank.

The apartment ain’t much to look at, if you’re being honest. It’s a one bed, one bath, with a dinky kitchen and a dinky living room. Aubrey pretty much marches over to the couch and dumps her boxes on it before you can even offer the bedroom, then busies herself setting up a place on the floor for the rabbit, with a little fence and hay and a couple copies of the _Times West Virginian _to shit on.

Goddamn, she loves that rabbit.

You’ve got some spare blankets and another pillow that you toss her way. “I don’t have a dresser or anythin’ for your, uh. Clothes, and shit,” you say, for no apparent reason. Like, it’s pretty obvious that she’s going to be living out of a suitcase for a while.

There aren’t really that many amenities, come to think of it. You haven’t had much in the way of guests over the years. But then again, this ain’t the goddamn Greenbrier Resort. Is anybody really expecting hot towel service from Duck Newton?

Shit. This is not the best plan you’ve ever had, perhaps.

“Yeah, I figured,” Aubrey says, waving her hand nonchalantly. “It’s fine. I mean, I’ve been living on the road for a good while. I’ve slept in worse.” Then her eyes widen. “Oh, I’m not trying to dunk on your apartment, Duck, I just—”

“I mean, you can,” you drawl. “Kinda a shithole. I’m not tryna pull the wool over your eyes or nothin’. It’s a dump.”

She looks gingerly around the room, at the old posters and magazines and the open toolkit on the kitchenette counter. “I, um – I think it has charm,” she says, rather too kindly.

“Yeah. Okay.” You have to bite back a smile. Gotta use a no-nonsense tone in order to set a standard for new roommate behavior. “You got towels and everything?”

“Yup. All in my duffel.” She pats it gently, then pats the rabbit. “How long have you lived here? I don’t think I ever asked you.”

“What, you mean Kepler? Or this specific apartment?”

“This specific apartment, yeah. Didn’t you go to high school here? I assumed you were a born and raised… y’know.”

You amble over and plant your ass on the couch, because fuck if you’re gonna be standing around awkwardly like a freshman at a house party in your own fuckin’ house. The springs creak under you, and you drum your fingers on the armrest as you try to remember. “Uhh. I’ve had this apartment for… three? Goin’ on four years, now? Wasn’t in much better condition when I signed the lease.”

She makes a face. “Duuuck…”

“What?”

“Actually, lemme look at your bathroom before I make any snap judgements.”

“Jesus fuckin’ christ almighty,” you mutter to yourself, smoothing a hand over your face as she flips the light on and makes three different sounds in rapid succession.

The first sound is _Huh!_

The second is _Oh._

The third is _Huh._

You wince. “You okay in there?”

“Why does your soap holder thingy look… like _that?”_

“Sometimes people slip and fall in the shower, Aubrey, it’s fine.”

She pokes her head back out and gives you a tentative thumbs-up, unwound scarf still dangling from her neck. “Well, there’s no toxic mold, so this is automatically better than, like, forty percent of the motels I’ve stayed at in the past two years.”

“Well, it’s good to know that I have better ratings than the Econolodge. Do you want some’n’a drink? I have, uh.” You cross the room and open the fridge. “Milk… water… I could make some coffee, I guess. You want coffee?”

From the sofa, with her duffel bag on her lap, she makes a face. “Yeah, but I also wanna eat. I haven’t eaten anything all morning, what with… y’know.” She flips her hand out, palm up. “The fash.”

Your eyebrows must be lost in your hairline. “The _fash?”_

“Uh, yeah. Like, fascists. I’m ninety-nine percent sure the actual fucking FBI counts as fash.”

“No, _yeah,_ Aubrey, I know what _‘the fash’ _is, it just wasn’t what I was expecting to come out of your mouth.”

She gives you a look and points to herself. “Dude, look at me. I have rad hair and piercings, I’m wearing a kickass denim jacket with spiky shoulders, and I’m a bisexual _wizard,_ Duck. I’m the coolest person alive. Of course I’m gonna call them _‘the fash’.”_

You fold your hands over your stomach with what you think is an appropriately apologetic frown. “You got me there. As a grown skater man, I shoulda known better.”

She laughs. “Damn right. Let’s go get some food, fellow law-disrespecter.”

There’s a diner a few blocks away that you used to frequent more often as a kid. A lot of the waitstaff still remembers you, and it’s a constant stream of _Hey, Duck_ until they take your orders. Aubrey yawns over her mug of coffee and shakes three packets of sugar in one hand, her opposite leg jittering wildly. With her sunglasses on indoors, she looks pretty unhinged.

Not that you’d blame her. She has huge bags under her eyes, and there’s a weirdly fragile quality to her attitude. You wonder how much gas she has left in the tank before… well, something happens.

You hope nothing happens. But such is your luck that something will probably goddamn happen.

Speaking of things happening, you should check up on Leo and Minerva when you get back. You add that to a mental checklist approximately five miles long and slump back against the corner where the wall meets the back of the booth.

“Hey, Duck?” She finally rips the packets open and dumps them into her coffee.

“Yep,” you say, not moving from your new and super chill position. Hey, when the hell did you get this tired? You could probably just take a nap right here, right now.

“How long do you think they can keep the town quarantined?”

You shrug the shoulder that’s not mashed into the wall. “Dunno. I think they have some kinda cover story about an avalanche and a chemical spill, so people aren’t gonna get too nosy for, uh… a few weeks, at least. Maybe. Why?”

She shrugs in the middle of a sip of coffee. “I mean, they can only keep the roads shut for so long, right? This place has a reputation for being weird, or at least fake-weird, so if people get wind of the actual fucking FBI being here, then they’re gonna have to deal with a lot more public pressure, right?”

“I guess.”

“And, like, they can’t keep this up forever. The world’s probably gonna go to shit before Christmas, so all they’re really doing is putting on a show! Like, they don’t have the expertise, they don’t have the knowledge, and they sure as hell haven’t done anything useful over the past, what, week? And where the fuck is Agent Stern in all of this, huh?”

You nod as she continues to lay out the situation. She’s being very loud, but you don’t really have the wherewithal to tell her to be quiet. In your opinion, she’s just saying what’s on everybody’s minds. As long as she doesn’t play up the supernatural shit – which she won’t – the worst consequence you’re gonna get is a noise complaint.

The server returns with a short stack for Aubrey and a Monday special for you. Now you have to sit up to eat, so you lever yourself upright and grab your silverware in one hand, waiting patiently for your companion to finish with the jug of syrup.

Halfway through her pour, she cuts herself off abruptly and says, “Am I talking too much? Sorry. Tell me if I’m talking too much.”

“Naw, you’re good. I’m just out of it, I think.”

Aubrey nods sympathetically and hands you the jug, cutting into her first pancake. “Yeah. It’s been a rough couple of days. Oh, shit – what’s gonna happen with your job? Are they still letting you, y’know, do your thing in the woods?”

“Don’t say it like that,” you groan, spearing a sausage with your fork. “I’m supposed to _stop_ people from doing their thing in the woods.”

She snickers. You eat the… well, that’s another innuendo, huh? Okay, fine. You just fuckin’ eat. And the food is absolutely scrumptious, thanks for asking, Charlie’s Corner is one of the best in the business as far as you’re concerned.

After you finish up, you slap down a few bills on the table, pound the rest of your now-lukewarm coffee, and wave to the counter as you hold the door open. Aubrey does an overdramatic curtsey and you roll your eyes.

“Uh-thank-you, Sir Ducksworth Newtington,” she says in a nasal British accent, breath puffing white in the air, and prances out the door as you snort.

It’s still cold for mid-March. The last snow has already booked it – well, at least you hope it was the last snow – but you’re still wearing boots and a thick jacket because damned if you’re going to let even one molecule of cold air touch the skin below your neck. Aubrey, on the other hand, seems to thrive in the chilly weather, denim vest on over a black hoodie, a scarf looped carelessly around her neck.

She’d look carefree, you think, if you didn’t know her better than that by now.

Minerva is back in the apartment by the time you arrive, wiping your boots on the doormat. You open the door to see her crouched down in the living room, patting Dr. Harris Bonkers’s head. He’s doing the li’l nose-twitchy thing. You bet aliens smell weird.

“Hello, Duck Newton!” she says in her booming big-top voice. “I have been waiting for you for twenty-two of your earth minutes!”

“They’re just minutes, Minerva, and they’re everybody’s minutes, not just mine,” you grouse as you unlace your boots. “You’ve met Aubrey, right? This is my friend, Aubrey Little. She’s a—”

“A magician,” Aubrey interrupts in her most officious voice. “I’m a magician. For a living. The gentleman in the pen is Dr. Harris Bonkers, Ph.D.”

“And this is—”

“My name is Minerva! I arrived from my planet approximately one and a half of your Earth days ago through a wormhole that I created in Duck Newton’s brain! I am very pleased to formally make your acquaintance. He informed me that we would likely be accommodating a third co-resident. I must say that I was extremely excited at the prospect, as it’s been quite a while since I shared living quarters, or, indeed, a planet, with other living beings!”

Aw, fuck. “Hey, you mind sharing the pull-out with Aubrey? I forgot to ask.”

“I have been sleeping on the floor so far, and that is fine by me!”

“Dude, I showed you how to pull the couch out, c’mon!”

Aubrey is staring at you. “Does he still have a wormhole in there?” she asks, more awestruck than concerned. You don’t know if you appreciate that.

“Not to worry, I sealed it upon arrival! I do not anticipate returning to my planet in the near future.”

You absolutely need to jump tracks. You cannot handle a sad Minerva right now and you definitely don’t want to talk more about the supposedly sealed wormhole in your brain. “So you two are okay with sharing the couch?”

Aubrey shrugs. “I mean, it’s a pretty big couch. I’m good.”

“I am also ‘good’ with this arrangement,” Minerva says sagely. “It is very generous of you to share your quarters with us.”

“Yeah, thanks, Duck,” Aubrey chirps.

Oof. Okay. Lots of gratitude. Cool. Cool. That’s normal. This is fine.

“Uh, yeah. Noooo problemo,” you say awkwardly, like a fool. “Um. Why don’t… you get settled in… and I’ll gonna go check on, like, Leo and Barclay and Mrs. Pearson. And others.”

“Okay,” they say in unison, and you re-lace your boots and book it the hell downstairs.

It seems your apartment complex has transformed into the new Amnesty Lodge virtually overnight. That’s great, because that means you and Barclay only need to make a few additional stops on your first shuttle route to H2-Whoah, That Was Fun!

It’s also not great, because you get frantic knocks on your door at five in the morning, and you can hear that Minerva is first to the door by the time you manage to lever your feet out of bed.

“Duck Newton, your friends have an urgent issue,” she calls in a loud stage whisper. Squinting through the darkness, you can see a clearly just-woken-up Barclay looming behind the nervous ball of goggle-tanned Mountain Dew Code Red energy that is a panicked Jake Coolice.

Barclay barely manages to get out a dead-eyed “good morning” before Jake blurts out, “Mama just got arrested, we gotta go!”

“What?!” Aubrey says from the couch, sitting up with a start.

So you all pile up in Barclay’s pickup truck at 5:15 AM on a Tuesday, except for Minerva, who is thirty feet tall and fucking blue and would not be a great look for y’all in front of FBI agents at this time. Or any. You’re still pulling on your jacket when you ask for clarification.

“So, like, did she get arrested by feds, or was it Owens, or—”

“It was the FBI, but she’s staying at the station, at least for the night,” Barclay says, taking a sharp right onto the main road, ID bracelet gleaming for a split second under the traffic lights. “Owens can’t do anything about it.”

That proves accurate, unfortunately. When you roll up to the station, there are two expensive black cars parked out front, and three agents inside. The first one is sitting in the waiting area and doesn’t move a muscle when you all bust in; the second one gets an earful while you all cause a ruckus in Sheriff Owens’ office. Aubrey in particular lets loose with a barrage of scathing criticism, as Barclay is more of a menacing aura than a “can I talk to your manager” type. She and Jake insult everything from the fed’s haircut to the entire United States government, but no one budges.

“Can we at least see her?” you ask, cutting in with what you hope is a degree of smoothness. “I mean, there’s no rule sayin’ we can’t, like, have visitation rights, is there?”

Sheriff Owens looks at you with a grimace, and the fed just looks up to the ceiling to plead with a higher power before levelling a stare at you. “Madeline Cobb is currently prohibited from receiving visitors for another seventy-two hours, until we finish our preliminary investigation. We can’t guarantee that she’ll be released after that, but she’ll be able to receive visitors who undergo our screening process.”

“You can’t just detain people indefinitely!” Aubrey shouts, slamming her hand down on Owens’ desk. The sheriff winces. You take an anticipatory breath, just in case you need to intervene with, like, words. “That’s illegal! This whole thing is fucking illegal!”

“If you’ll kindly call back to your own questioning, Miss,” and here he checks his dumb little steno pad, “Little, this is absolutely within the boundaries of the law. We have declared a state of emergency in this town and some neighboring territories, but I assure you that Mrs. Cobb will not come to any harm.”

She and Barclay and Jake are a hair’s breadth away from literally forcing their way into the holding rooms until you manage to discreetly indicate that, first of all, they all have guns, and second of all, tussling with the FBI will get all of _you _thrown into the pen as well, and you _will _get to see Mama, but you’ll also leave Amnesty Lodge 2.0 to the fuckin’ wolves if you do.

The entire ordeal takes about two and a half hours of back-and-forth, but the agent doesn’t budge, and you are all but threatened with arrest for disorderly conduct before you all pile back into the truck unhappily at almost eight in the morning.

Aubrey and Jake are both thunderheads in the back seat, staring out the windows in complete silence during the ten-minute drive back to the other end of town. Barclay isn’t happy, either, but you know he’ll just keep knocking on that door until they let her go. He’s been through a lot, so you gather.

In the lobby of the apartment complex, you pinch the bridge of your nose and ask, “Anybody want pancakes? I got, like, pancake mix. And, uh, some bacon.”

“I can’t eat bacon,” Aubrey says, and you can hear her trying not to snap at you. You guess you appreciate that, given the situation.

“Okay, so that’s one order of pancakes.” You raise your eyebrows at Barclay and Jake. The kid looks way too miserable to be alone right now, and the Hornets are, suffice it to say, not available, so you add, “Guess I’ll make that two. You down for three, big man?”

Barclay shrugs his massive shoulders and says, “Can I bring Mrs. Pearson? She’s an early riser.”

In about twenty minutes, there are five people crammed into your apartment. Mrs. Pearson is on the couch with Jake, Barclay is hovering in the kitchen, and Minerva and Aubrey are sitting at the tiny fold-out dining table. Maybe you should invest in some better furniture, now that you aren’t just being a slob by yourself.

You flip one of the three pancakes cooking on your skillet and break it in half. “Fuck.”

“Give it here,” Barclay sighs, and, tying his hair higher on his head to get into work mode, grabs the spatula from you, turning down the heat and knifing some more butter onto the skillet. You busy yourself running the coffee machine again. Jake doesn’t seem to be able to ingest caffeine the normal, adult way, so you just give him a glass of milk, and then you microwave a packet of Aubrey’s breakfast tea for Mrs. Pearson.

Then you kind of just stand there with your arms crossed for a moment before you gather up the guts to ask, “So… how’re you? Doin’, I mean.”

Barclay sighs, nudging at the edge of a freshly-poured pancake. “I mean, I’m not happy, man, I’ll tell you that much. But I’m not in the depths of despair, either. We’ve been through a lot at the Lodge, and we’re gonna weather this storm, just like all the others. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from getting into serious trouble for the first, I dunno, century and a half of my life, it’s that you gotta believe it’ll blow over eventually.”

He flips the pancake expertly. Vaguely, you realize he must have also done some cooking at the Lodge. “I mean, we can’t just keep our heads down this time, Barclay. Some serious shit’s about to go down. The timer’s kind of counting down to the day the next Abomination shows up.”

“I know, Duck,” he sighs, rubbing at his forehead. “And I don’t intend to just sit on my ass and do nothing about this. But me and Mama, we’ve gotten folks through a lot. And we didn’t do that by going to war with – the goddamn FBI.”

“I’m just sayin’ that we might not have much of a choice,” you say, staring at the perfect browned ring on the back of the pancake as it rises. Barclay flips the second one to reveal an identical ring. Goddamn, he’s good. “Like, not getting into a firefight with the FBI or anythin’ like that, I don’t think that would end well for anyone, but…”

“We’d lay down our lives for the folks in this town, Duck, you know that as well as anyone. I’ll fight with you, if the time comes. But I dearly hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t want my hometown to be turned into a battlefield, is all.”

“Can’t argue with that,” you murmur.

“Yeah.” He gives you a tired smile. “Would you hand me that plate? I think these are ready.”

Soon, everyone has their own short stack, and you’re out of pancake mix. Aubrey and Jake have cooled their jets somewhat – Aubrey because Minerva is bizarre and kind of short-circuits all other feelings to redirect brainpower to figuring out what the _fuck, _and Jake because Mrs. Pearson is the best. You and Barclay eat off of paper plates because you’re a bachelor, which means you have to be extra judicious with the syrup. Barclay towers over the table, and you’re half-sitting on the arm of the couch next to Jake. Aubrey slid the blinds open on your big window, so you get a good eyeful of the nearby road bathed in bright sunlight.

Despite what just went down a few hours ago, and what’s been happening nonstop for the past couple of days, you’re feeling pretty good.

Maybe it’s because you have your crew with you. Maybe it’s because the sun is finally out. Maybe it’s because you don’t have to go into work today.

Maybe it’s because you finally feel like the thousand-piece puzzle of your life is finally coming together, even if it’s taken a series of seemingly-never-ending crisis conditions to do that.

And maybe that’s selfish, to be glad that things went to shit so you could have all these people in your shitty apartment at the same time, but hey, you didn’t get this far by falling in line to be Minerva’s selfless hero.

So you try not to spill your coffee on the carpet, and enjoy the brief time you have with the #FreeMama2k19 crew before everyone heads their separate ways.

Within the first week of the evacuation, everyone you know has been questioned or detained or some other nonsense by the FBI. You and Dr. Drake were both scooped up basically in the first hour of their little ant farm invasion. Now, all you have to deal with is making sure no one goes nuts and trashes the Monongahela to cope, and also scrape together a plan for how in the hell you’re going to deal with the imminent threat of another monster crashing through the gates and mauling the hell out of some suits.

Resentful as you are of them, you probably shouldn’t be feeding FBI agents to a monster just because they’re inconveniencing you and everyone you know and because they suck ass.

Probably. Hasn’t the FBI done some fuckin’ shit? They’re the goddamn fash, à la Aubrey, of course they have.

But you’re trying to have principles, okay, so you’re not going to, even if you should, because they do, in fact, have guns, and maybe other mysterious government tech, and all Keplerians have to defend them are the Amnesty Lodge squad – one Bigfoot, one dude with a creepy sword, a big blue lady, someone who can do fire magic sometimes – and a bunch of old-ass hunting rifles, which, you’ll remember, did not end fucking well for anyone.

Aubrey hasn’t really left the apartment that much. You guess she’s still mad at everyone, and you would be, too, if you’d’ve been there.

Well, you’re not _not _mad. You’re just not, well, you know. Furious.

You kind of miss Ned, because every time you see Minerva, you know he’d have gotten a kick out of that, and you wonder whether she would have enjoyed _Saturday Night Dead,_ which has now been put on indefinite hiatus because Kirby ain’t about to put on a one-man show. Firstly, he doesn’t have the charisma, and secondly, he’s, y’know, deep in mourning and stuff.

But you don’t get to think about it that much, because you’re drowning in emergency nature shit at the ranger station and in the park because of catastrophic environmental change, i.e., Mount Kepler blowin’ her top into the Greenbrier River and destroying half the town, and then you gotta do rounds back at the apartment to make sure everyone’s doing okay, and then you gotta do twice-weekly trips to the water park so nobody fuckin’ dies from geothermal energy deprivation or whatever, and then you have a full house whenever you finally make it back to the apartment.

Jesus. At least two people handling groceries has been better than one. You think you’d probably be living off of Pop Tarts and coffee if you didn’t have other people to consider before rushing off for your fifth day of cleanup in a row.

You’ve both made it your goal, in the meantime, to assist Minerva in her Earth Culture education. She watches TV when she’s not sneaking around the apartment complex to meet the former Lodge residents, and you think she’s made pretty good progress on _Friends, _given the absolute hailstorm of questions the two of you Earthlings have to field whenever you return to the apartment, like, _I understand that it is inappropriate for Rachel to simply subdue Ross with force, although he is highly irritating, but are there any Earth customs through which she could, for instance, duel him?_

Social customs on her planet seem much more straightforward, you think. Aubrey cackles when Minerva talks about the various, and in your opinion, very _blunt_ ways one could rebuff a suitor in her version of ye olden days.

But whatever her culture used to be, it doesn’t seem to have any restrictions on curling up on the couch with some friends and watching _Poltergeist _in the dark with a bowl of popcorn. She laughs hard when Aubrey gets spooked by the tree dragging Robbie through the window and sends half the bowl sliding all over the pullout.

“Haven’t you seen this movie before?” You nudge her with your elbow.

“I’ve seen the first fifteen minutes, like, three separate times,” she pouts, scooping a handful of popcorn off of her blanket. “Mostly right before I had to do a Halloween performance at a hotel or community center or something, and they were running a movie night in the next room over.”

“Well, settle in,” you say. “Ned never managed to get this scheduled on _Saturday Night Dead, _because it’s not technically, like, a B-movie, but…” And then you trail off, because her smile is brittle now in the flickering light of the television. You could crack it like the shell off a crayfish, if you wanted to.

But you don’t, because you wouldn’t know what to do with whatever’s underneath.

And then the momentary tension evaporates when Minerva whoops. Carol Anne has just been sucked into her closet. “Intriguing! This ‘ghost’ seems to be using a similar dimension-folding apparatus to what my people once used for short-distance travel! Perhaps these strange incidents involving dining utensils could be explained by the resonant frequencies generated by the creation of such a ‘hopping’ portal, which tend to denature objects made of exceptionally fragile material if they are not adequately protected! What do you think, friends?”

“You’ll just have to watch the rest of the movie to find out,” Aubrey says, and shoves another handful of spilled popcorn into her mouth.

“Wait, wait, wait. Hold the fuckin’ phone, my big blue friend. _Denatured? _Ain’t my brain made of delicate materials? Are you saying you could’ve turned my skull into a pudding cup, pal?”

“Perhaps if I had attempted the jump five centuries in the past! The transporter that I used is much more robust and relatively non-invasive!”

_“Relatively non-invasive?”_ You raise your voice. Aubrey spits out popcorn, unable to hold in a giggle. “You popped out of my head, Minerva! That’s literally _the_ most invasive form of transportation I’ve ever heard of!”

“Sylvain put part of its essence into me when I put my hand on the big crystal,” Aubrey says. “At least she didn’t have to live in your brain.”

“I _guess,” _you grouse. “But now my house is haunted by not one, but _two _weird science-fantasy roommates.”

“Three weird science-fantasy roommates,” she corrects you, bopping you over the head with one of the pillows. “Don’t disrespect the only person with a doctorate in the room! He worked hard for that!”

You barely manage to get the popcorn bowl out of her lap and onto the floor before the pillow slapfight gets serious. Minerva almost gives you a concussion, and your next-door neighbor almost gives you a noise complaint.

“Sorry, Mr. C,” you say, squinting out into the hallway. “Just havin’ a movie night.”

“I didn’t peg you for such a youthful spirit, Duck,” he says. Aw, shit, you made him put in his dentures to come yell at you. “Don’t suppose you could lend me some of that for my back, could ya?”

“No, Mr. C. Sorry again.”

You close the door and mouth _yikes _to your roommates before you make your way back over to the couch. Aubrey clicks the remote again, and soon you’re all back on the roller coaster ride of an Orange County graveyard hauntfest.

You’re going to have to vacuum in the morning, but you guess that’s all right. You are, after all, building important diplomatic relations for the safety of Earth. Minerva can’t help you save the world if she doesn’t understand her role in this shit as Starfire. 

And maybe, just maybe, you’re enjoying having roommates.

When you retreat back to your room at two in the morning and fall down face-first on your pillow, you make a mental note to yourself to try not to bring Ned up until she’s ready. 

The only problem is that you don’t know when that will be.

You kind of just assume that it’ll be the funeral. But it isn’t. You spend the entire day in a daze, and when you think back on it, you barely remember anything that happened. Aubrey spoke, you spoke, Kirby gave a speech. Reverend Ericson did his whole religious jam. There was a wake at the Cryptonomica.

You don’t know if you cried. You must’ve, at some point, because you stood in the bathroom of your apartment and looked in the mirror and thought, _Wow, I look awful, _but you’re not a hundred percent sure.

All you know is that your friend is gone and you have a literal mountain of shit to shovel before you reach the other side, and it might kill you first.

Aubrey just curls up in bed after the service, and you don’t know what to do, so you just go into your room and lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering when the world will stop fucking spinning so you can catch a break.

When you shuffle out to the kitchen at the asscrack of dawn, you find that Minerva isn’t sleeping, either. She couldn’t attend the service, and you think she’s going a little stir-crazy, cooped up in here. And she doesn’t say anything, because Aubrey is still sleeping, and will continue to sleep for another eight hours because she’s in the pits, but she stands elbow-to-elbow with you as you lean against the counter and eat pudding cups together for breakfast.

“I know the stakes are high, Duck Newton,” she says in the hallway as you pay your morning visit to Barclay’s apartment. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“What for?” You open the door to the stairwell. “You gave me these powers, Minerva. You gave us a shot at resisting the Quell and the Abominations. You don’t have to be sorry about anything.”

“I think I do. You didn’t ask to be chosen. I made the decision for you. When I gave you that power, I drew you into the network of decisions that created the situation we find ourselves in today. I turned you into a warrior when I could have let you remain a bystander. It was cruel to do that. I can only say that I thought it necessary at the time.”

You mull over that, because you did resent her, for a very long time. You didn’t want to be Chosen. You didn’t want to lose your friends, especially not to your other friends. Things are fucked. You know your hands ain’t clean.

But you appreciate it. That she’s finally owning up to her part in making you the way that you are. You don’t know if the resentment will ever fully go away, even after all’s said and done, but it’s – it’s nice to hear, at least. It makes you feel like she’s finally listening to you.

“Maybe it was,” you say. “Both of those things. I can’t say I like it, but I ain’t mad at you, because I get why you did what you did. And besides, even if you didn’t give me any of this Superman shit, you aren’t the one who chose whether I’d be a bystander to this whole thing or not. That’s my decision.” You sigh. “God knows I’ve been over this with Leo a million times. Let’s call it square, okay?”

“It is a perfect square,” she says with a broad smile, and she squeezes your hand a little too tight when you shake hands, but you find that you don’t mind, so much. “Your wisdom always surprises me, my friend.”

You try not to smile at that, and fail. “Thanks for the compliment, mon frere.”

February closes out soon afer that, and throughout the beginning of March, you feel that you’re doing pretty well, considering.

But the thing is that it gets harder to ignore the fact that there’s a gaping hole in your gang. You turn to ask a question, or fire off some smart comment, and he’s just not there. It’s like missing a step on your way down the stairs, the sudden jolt and shock that makes the memory of his face, calm and weirdly still in death, come crashing to the forefront of your mind.

And you wonder, at night, if you’d just been more careful, if you had just watched his six like you should have…

It’s just _what ifs, _though, isn’t it? Things you could’ve done from miles out.

Your roommate is the one who’s really going through it. It’s not that you’re downplaying your grief, or whatever. Of course you’re gonna take it hard. He was your friend.

But Aubrey didn’t even want to speak at his funeral. She’s keeping it all bottled up. And you wish you were the kind of guy to sit her down and ask her to talk it out, but you’re not. So you wait for her to come to you.

You wait, and you wait, and finally, there’s a knock on your door in the middle of the night, and you see Aubrey standing there with an absolutely miserable expression on her face.

“Hi, Duck,” she warbles.

“Hey, Aubrey,” you say, scratching at the two-day stubble on your chin. “What’s up?”

“Um…” She shrugs, purses her lips, and looks like she’s about to cry.

You try, good lord do you try, to be gentle and say the right thing. “Thinkin’ about Ned?”

She nods miserably.

“Yeah, me too,” you sigh, and herd her into your room, flipping on the light before making a pit stop in the kitchen to brew some of that newfangled tea she got from the grocery store in the microwave. You take the two mugs back and find her perched on your bed, wrapped in the comforter. That leaves the chair for you, and you hand her one of the mugs as you sit down.

She lets the comforter fall down around her shoulders as she takes the mug with both hands, tucking it back up while she blows on the steeping tea.

“Y’know,” you start, with no idea how you’re going to finish. You gnaw on your lip, tap your fingers on the mug. “I didn’t know Ned very well before you came to town. I mean, I knew _of _him, I knew Victoria, back when she owned the place, but… I’m kinda… I dunno.” You take a deep breath, scratch at your scalp through your unwashed hair. “I think what I’m tryna say is that I regret not gettin’ to know ’im sooner.”

Aubrey yanks the bag around in the mug by the little string attached to the label, not meeting your eyes. “Yeah. I, um. I think… he was one of the first people I really made friends with when I got here. Like, he was super nice to me, and he was just…” She sniffs, shrugs, stares into the darkening liquid. “He enjoyed being who he was. Like, everyone has insecurities and flaws, or whatever, but that didn’t stop him from, you know, being Ned Chicane. And it made me feel better. About being me. Therapy helps, and everything, but being on the road is a lonely gig. I really didn’t feel _great _until I met y’all. And now…”

You watch anxiously as she wipes her orange-ringed eyes, takes a deep, shuddery breath, and sips her tea. “And now you fight monsters with a gang of badass Mountaineers. Pretty fuckin’ cool, right?”

“Pretty fuckin’ cool,” she agrees, giving you a shaky smile. “Pretty fuckin’ scary, too.”

“Yep. I was gonna…” You slam the brakes on that and throw your brain in reverse. Absolutely not right now with the morbid shit, Duck, good lord. “Uh.”

“Gonna what?”

“Naw, it’s morbid and depressin’. Aren’t we, y’know, memorializing right now? Or… whatever?”

“I mean,” she says, shrugging. “I feel pretty morbid and depressing, Duck.”

You stare at your tea and contemplate for a minute, then think, well, who the fuck else are you gonna run this over with? If you don’t trust Aubrey, who _will _you trust?

“Like, I don’t wanna be a fuckin’ – pessimistic asshole, but I was kinda thinkin’ it had to happen sooner or later. Like, we’ve been through a lotta shit over the past couple of months, Aubrey. Shit that maybe literally anyone else wouldn’t’ve gotten through in one piece. And… maybe our luck just. Ran out? I dunno.” You grind the heel of your hand into your eye and sip on the fancy leaf juice for something to do. “Man, I don’t think that’s the right thing to say to anybody. But that’s how I feel, I guess.”

“That _is_ pretty morbid, I’m not gonna lie.” She tugs on her silk cap, scratches back of her neck, wipes at her eyes again. “I don’t think it was inevitable at all. And I guess it’s different for me, because I didn’t grow up, like, being ‘The Choooosen Oooone’ or anything. Um. But like, it’s all about the choices we make, right? To help each other out, to build relationships. To pick up Tylenol when your friend is sick. To go to a show with them, even if you don’t know the band.” She shrugs again, and her voice comes out choked when she speaks again. “To get mad, and – and say shit you know’s gonna hurt ’em.”

“Aubrey, it’s not,” you start, but she shakes her head, and you realize you have to let the song play out.

“I yelled at him,” she says in a small voice, and sounds like a middle schooler confessing a misdeed. “I told him… to get lost. And clean to up his mess. God, I was a dick, you know? It just brought back all these memories of my mom and dad, and, like, all those years of thinking that I was the one who killed them, and no matter how much I was at peace with it, I knew I was gonna have to live with the guilt, and the what-ifs, for the rest of my life. And that was okay. I was okay with that. But he just – when I saw the pendant, it was like he pulled the rug out from under me. All those years, Duck, and for what? To find out that someone _else _should have been taking responsibility all that time? That I could’ve been, like, at least a little less miserable?” Her voice cracks. “I know that’s not how it works, and I don’t really believe that, but I was so mad at him. I literally told him to skip town. I didn’t think he was – I didn’t think he was brave enough to…”

“I think we all underestimated ‘im,” you murmur. “Didn’t appreciate exactly how much backbone he had. Might’ve been because he was just a flighty old dude running a little shop o’ conspiracy theories, or because he was old, or… But I know I took it at face value. And I shouldn’t’ve. I mean, I didn’t do it for you, right? So. I don’t think—”

“I know you’re gonna say it’s not my fault, Duck, but it kinda – you can’t say that I didn’t push him, like, _at all._ If I’m the straw that broke the camel’s back, then it’s my responsibility, yeah?” She raises her voice toward the end, not on purpose, you think, her one free hand curled into a fist on the blankets.

“I was gonna say,” and you put your large hand on her sturdy, smaller one, “that it’s not just your fault. We’re all kinda responsible, in our own ways. Even him. You, me, Leo, Minerva, the folks who broke the crystal, all the way back. Everyone makes choices, like you said. And if even one of those choices was different, things wouldn’t be like they are. And it sucks, believe you me, I _know _it sucks, but… if we’re gonna give a big middle finger to destiny, then we have to accept that, you know? That everyone just does shit, and we don’t really know how anything’s gonna end up. The only thing we really have is…”

“Hope,” she says softly, finishing your sentence for you. “If we can’t trust in destiny, hope is the next best thing.”

“Well, I was gonna say shitty coffee and decent roommates,” you drawl, “but hope’s a good thing to have, too.”

She giggles at that, puts her empty mug on your nightstand, and wraps herself tighter in your blankets. When the smile slides off of her face, you put your mug on the dresser, and pull one leg up onto the seat of your chair, scratching the inside of your thigh. Is that gross? You don’t care.

“The thing with my parents is that I never knew for sure what happened that night,” she says, leaning her chin on her knees. Her eyes are still red, voice still hoarse. “And, like, that’s fine. I’ve made my peace with that. But I _know _what happened to Ned. I know who shot him. I know everyone he talked to. I can draw a – a clear, red line from Point A to Point B. And I’ve never had that before. The clarity. Y’know? And I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”

“’S prob’ly both. It’s usually both, in my experience.”

“Mm-hm. Feels like it.” She wraps her arms around her legs, tucking them closer to her chest. “I dunno. I just can’t shake the feeling that if I’d… just taken a moment to think, if we’d gone up to the Gate together… he wouldn’t have died.”

You sigh. “Yeah, maybe. But you don’t know that for sure, either. Maybe you both would’ve died, and where would that leave me? Besides, I don’t think anyone’s gonna blame you for reactin’ the way you did. It was pretty mind-bogglin’ to hear, even secondhand.”

“Is it rude to say that I don’t care if other people blame me?” She bites her lip. “Because I think _I_ blame me, and if I’m being honest, I don’t know if I can handle it right now. We have a lot of shit to do.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” you grouse. “We have a genuine ecological disaster on our hands. You know how much of this state’s forest just wasn’t here, like, fifty years ago? They cut it all down for lumber and coal refineries. It’s as fragile as Mrs. Pearson’s fine china.”

“Really? I guess I don’t know a lot about, like, the woods, but I thought these were pretty old.”

“Some of it is,” you clarify, cracking your neck. She makes a face at you, so you crack the other side, too. “Most of it is new growth, though. Honestly doesn’t take too long for stuff to grow back, so long as you leave it the hell alone. And I think we were doing a damn good job of it. Up until now, that is.”

“Yeah,” she says thoughtfully. “But I feel like that’s kinda the way the world was made, you know? A big meteor crashed into the earth, and now mammals are king instead of giant feathery birds and lizards.”

“Sure, but it sucked for all the giant feathery birds and lizards for the, like, five seconds it took for them to crisp up.” You shake your head. “What the fuck were we talkin’ about?”

“All the stuff we have to do.”

“Right. Eeugh.” You pause. “No, before that. You said you blamed yourself.”

“I mean… yeah. It – it makes sense.” She looks down at her hands again.

You take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You didn’t tell him to go die, did you?”

She looks back up in shock. “No! Of course not!”

Making a weird gesture with your hands, you shrug, and say, “Yeah. You just told him to clean up his act. What Ned chose to do was correct his mistake, just like it was Pigeon’s choice to fire her fuckin’ gun. There is no line from A to B, Aubrey, not for you. You didn’t put him there, and you didn’t pull the trigger. Whatever you said to him, it didn’t make him want to _die. _He was trying to do the right thing. And you gave him the chance to do the right thing.”

“Yeah, but it feels like shit if the right thing for him to do ended up with someone shooting him, Duck!”

“Maybe it ain’t supposed to feel good, or it can’t. I sure as hell don’t feel good about anything, and I haven’t even been blamin’ myself as half much as I maybe should be.”

She sticks her legs out, dangling them over the side of the bed. “I don’t think you should blame yourself at all. You were on the other side of town, basically, right?”

“That’s the thing, though.” You shrug. “I don’t think you can control how you feel about it. Maybe it’s just your brain tryin’ to figure out why, y’know, shit happens. And maybe someday we’ll finally stop, and realize that shit _does_ fuckin’ happen, and it sucks, and… stuff keeps happening. The rise of the mammals.”

“That’s pretty deep stuff.” She’s not making fun of you, not really. You think it might be an apology for snapping at you.

“Man, I don’t fuckin’ know,” you groan, suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t know shit about shit except trees, Aubrey. Maybe we’re the dinosaurs.”

“I don’t think so. We have opposable thumbs and cool human brains. And a big blue alien roommate. And a talking sword.”

“And Bigfoot,” you mutter. “Damn, I wish Mothman were here.” And that’s a whole other thing, you think, so you just let her nod and don’t say or feel anything else about that. “The point is, you don’t have to not feel guilty or shitty. None of us are doing real hot. No one _wanted _Ned to die, even though we all got here together. But, y’know. I’m here. You can knock on my door, or whatever. When it gets to be a lot.”

“Yeah,” she says, and the smile she gives you this time is so warm and genuine that you know without a doubt that she trusts you, because you’re friends. Blood brothers, at this point, or blood siblings, or something like that. “I know.”

You’re not really the best at this. You’ve always been kind of a loner – not friendless, but kind of a drifter, a weirdo on the outskirts of everyone’s town, weaving in and out of everyone else’s life like a loose thread. So when Aubrey draws you in, and you wrap your arms around each other for a hug, you feel like maybe you finally understand what people mean when they talk about _brotherly love._

It’s three in the morning, and when you fall asleep in your bed, she is tucked into the corner with all of your blankets, scrolling through memes on her phone.

What Aubrey goes through in the next few weeks is not what you’d call _recovery. _Recovery implies that she’s slowly coming back to her old self. You don’t think any of you have that option anymore, not with the shit you’ve already seen, and the threats looming behind the Gate, or with the FBI still crawling around town like a pack of suited-up rats. And she’s not really getting better, you think, or at least she won’t have a chance to sit down and patch things up until this is all over.

But she is dealing with it. She is healing as well as she can with the aid of time and her remaining friends. You worry, of course, because who are you if not a perpetually uneasy guy. You watch her wrap up all of her insecurities and moments of grief in jokes and fake cheer. She’s getting back to work.

It’s not great, but what else should she do? You’re all fast approaching Judgment Day, and it won’t help to succumb to despair and hopelessness.

And besides, you can see her bend under the weight of it all, but she won’t break, not if you’re all helping her carry it.

After all, what’s the point of having two people with superhuman strength on your team if they won’t take on some of your bags?

The first signs of spring come in about the same time Aubrey makes a chores chart for the apartment. It’s a pie chart divided into three chunks of color. You think she printed it out at the library.

“I’ve gathered you here to brief you on the state of the apartment,” she begins, rabbit dozing in one arm. “Now, I don’t want to make anyone feel judged or anything, because we’ve all been kind of busy.”

“That’s puttin’ it mildly,” you mutter.

“Yes, Duck. That’s why I’ve made this chart. The apartment is a mess, and we’ll all feel a little bit better coming home to a place that doesn’t look like shit, right?”

“Correct,” Minerva says. “Are we being assigned functions to activate in these quarters? I can troubleshoot them, if necessary. I am quite handy with computers.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t have self-cleaning rooms on this planet,” Aubrey says patiently. “So we’re going to have to split up the chores and do them by hand. Is everyone in agreement?”

“Yes,” Minerva chirps. “Complete agreement.”

You aren’t really enthused about this, but you manage a dull “Yup.”

“Okay.” She points to the chart. “I don’t want to tell you what to do with your room, Duck, and I have Dr. Bonkers under control, so I’ve divided these into three areas: dishes, trash, and general housekeeping. Does that sound like a good division, or do you want me to revise it?”

“What does _general housekeeping _mean?”

You realize in that moment that Minerva has no idea what a dumpster is. “Why don’t we start you off with trash? That’s the easiest one.”

“General housekeeping just means vacuuming, dusting, wiping down the tabletops, maybe mopping the tile at the front door,” Aubrey says breezily.

Minerva’s brow pinches as she attempts to decipher the word _vacuuming. _“Do you have the technology to create a total vacuum in these quarters?”

This is excruciating. “A vacuum is a cleaning device that sucks up the gross shit through a nozzle. Can I be on dishes first?”

“Pick a magnet,” she says primly.

You grab the Coke bottle magnet-slash-bottle-opener and slap it onto the section of the chart labelled _DISHES _in Aubrey’s careful handwriting. “Cool. I’m the nature guy, and shit’s growing in the sink, so I guess I can wrangle it first.”

She giggles a little bit, stroking Dr. Bonkers’s back. It’s an improvement. “Okay. I’ll do housekeeping this week, then. And Minerva can do trash.”

“This is the trash, yes?” she says, hefting the plastic can off the ground and lifting the lid.

“Oh my _god, _put that back down,” you groan. “Actually, yeah, let’s show you this first. There’s been a weird fuckin’ smell in this place for, like, the last three days, and I think that’s it.”

Because Aubrey is holding the rabbit, you show Minerva how to tie the handles of the bag and lift it out of the can, and then you all take a trip down to the dumpster behind the apartment. Minerva watches closely as you fiddle with the anti-raccoon lock.

“To be honest, I don’t know if the trucks are gonna be able to make it out of here all the way to the landfill, what with the government blockade, and such,” you say. “Time to start tryin’ that zero-waste living fad, eh?”

Minerva frowns. “You mean your garbage isn’t vaporized by a local authority? It’s carted off to another location? What happens to it there?”

“It just sits there waiting to decompose for a million years, Minerva, don’t ask me for the deets. I’m an NPS serviceman. It’s depressing to think about.”

“How primitive,” she says, but not in a condescending way. You didn’t think your alien roommate would be so fascinated with the details of taking out the trash. “Our ancestors must have done this centuries – or perhaps even a millennium – ago!”

“Yeah, wait until we take you to the Lewisburg RenFest,” you mutter under your breath, but Aubrey hears you and laughs.

Minerva dunks the trash bag into the dumpster like she’s throwing a shotput. Being a hundred feet tall and super strong has its perks, you guess. She won’t stop speculating on the garbage disposal technology of Planet Earth all the way back up to the apartment, and neither you nor Aubrey can get a word in edgewise. All you do is exchange looks of barely-restrained laughter.

Things are feeling a little bit closer to normal with every day that passes. You know it’s only temporary, this little peace, and you’re reminded of that every time you have a planning meeting with Barclay, but it doesn’t stop you from thinking that you wouldn’t mind if things stayed like this for a while longer, even after the end of the world.

It takes a couple of weeks, but things reach some kind of equilibrium with Dani and Aubrey, and they’re going out on the reg again. Or at least that’s the impression that you get.

And, unfortunately, you get that impression when you have dropped trou and are halfway through a crucial movement. There’s a banging on the door that almost makes you slip a disc in panic.

“Hey hey hey, occupied!” you say, somewhat more shrilly than you wanted to.

_“Duck, I need the bathroom, stat!” _It’s Aubrey. Of course it’s Aubrey. You’re not sure if Minerva actually needs to use the toilet and you don’t want to think about it.

You look at the ceiling imploringly. “I promise you, friend-o, I need it more than you do at the moment,” you grit out between clenched teeth. Other things are clenched, too. The whole point of this exercise is to unclench, so this conversation is, hmm, really rustlin’ the old jimmies.

_“I have to do my makeup and stuff! Come on!”_

You groan. “Yeah, okay, that’s like three Defcon levels below my, uhhhhhh, ‘pertinent issues’ right now. Can you wait, like, five goddamn minutes?”

_“I’m going on a date, Duck, it’s basically a national emergency! I need to get ready!”_

“Jeez Louise,” you mutter before raising your voice again. “I need to finish taking the shit of a lifetime, dude, hold your horses!”

You can hear her cackle from the other side of the door. _“Gross!”_

“Yeah, really fuckin’ gross. Back away from the door, Little.”

_“Sorry. Backing away now. But hurry up!”_

She’s still waiting at the door when you finish washing up, makeup kit in her hands, and spits wildly when you flick water from your fingers onto her face.

“Duck, that’s disgusting!”

“You might want to leave the fan on for a minute before you go in,” you say smugly.

She makes a grossed-out face at you and sticks her head in the bathroom to check the air quality as you head back to the living room, where Minerva is folding the couch back in. You crouch down to let Dr. Harris Bonkers sniff your fingers before scritching the back of his head. He thumps happily.

Minerva towers over you with visible excitement, hands clasped together. “Would you like to watch some _Farscape_ with me, Duck Newton? I think I am approaching the end of the final season.”

“You don’t wanna help me hone up my Chosen One warrior skills?” you ask, half-joking. You haven’t had the time or energy for training in a long while.

“We could, if you wanted to,” she says loftily, “but perhaps after we learn how the ‘frak’ the story ends?”

“Well, I can’t promise you’ll like it, and I don’t have the sequel miniseries on hand, which is the real ending.” You help her fold the blankets up and drape them over the armrests. “But you might need some emotional support after the last episode, so what the hell.”

Minerva places the last _Farscape _DVD into the tray with the delicacy of someone who’s smashed several of her host’s possessions on accident. You start coffee.

_“My name is John Crichton,” _Ben Browder says from the television. _“An astronaut. Three years ago, I got shot through a wormhole. Now I’m in a distant part of the universe, aboard this living ship of escaped prisoners, my friends…”_

You can see why she likes this show.

_“Look upwert, and share… the wonders I’ve seen,”_ you parrot in your best Browder as the coffee machine gurgles. Minerva laughs.

Your home, for a while, is full of joy.

When Aubrey leaves for her date, you and Minerva are eating toaster strudels off of your only clean plates, feet up on the table, coffee already spilled once. She waves goodbye with your keys in one hand and her sunglasses in the other, barely able to contain her excitement. You both wish her good luck, Minerva more aggressively so, and when the door closes, you unpause the DVD and continue the John Crichton Show.

It’s kind of weird, you think, to be so invested in the lives of fictional characters, when there’s a war brewing on the horizon, and the lives of everyone you know at stake. There are real things to be worried about: the FBI, the Abominations, Billy, Mama, the Sylvans, the Hornets, Pigeon, the sorry state the Monongahela is in now that Mt. Kepler got blown to bits. And you don’t have the DVD for _The Peacekeeper Wars, _so you won’t even get to see Aeryn get the happy ending she deserves. Why even watch?

You look over at Minerva, completely absorbed in the plot, toaster strudel hovering in the air halfway to her mouth, and you think that it’s because it makes you feel less alone, however things shore up. Maybe it’s a way of asking for advice when the odds are unspeakably impossible. Maybe it gives you a place to go when things seem hopeless.

You think, suddenly, of Amnesty Lodge, months ago, and then you think of Barclay and Jake and Indrid and Dani and Moira. How things looked back then, and how things look now. You think about Barclay flipping pancakes in the kitchen, how he takes Mrs. Pearson’s elbow when she goes up the stairs to the elevator.

They are all strong, to have made it this far with no promise of anything working out. But you know that if anyone can find a way through the hopelessness and despair, it’s Aubrey. It was always going to be Aubrey, the rule-breaker, the go-getter. And it was always going to be you, and Ned, for a while, right behind her.

She grieves now, but you know that this isn’t the way things will be forever. Someday, when she smiles, you’ll be able to feel the fire in her burning behind it once more.

You know it in your bones. Like the Greenbrier River, slow and thoughtful, she’ll find her own way.

**Author's Note:**

> drop an F in the chat if you miss ned chicane


End file.
